Guava’s.

I was so excited when I first saw the guava tree in our neighbors yard. Guavas make me think of home. My mom and dad were great African adventurers. They were forever setting off on expeditions into the Okavango Swamps the Etosha Salt Pan or other remote African wildernesses. They often left my brothers and I with my Grandmother, Bebe. Bebe lived on a guava farm called Ostrich Spring in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. She had hundreds of guava trees and we would walk, daily, through the orchards. I loved the exotic fragrance of guavas and we’d pick the pink fruit and eat them, still warm from the African sun. I have such fond memories of Bebe and Ostrich Spring. I think of them often, more so at this time of year. The guava tree in my neighbors yard is a prolific bearer and, for the month of October, the gorgeous fragrance of my childhood permeates my whole home. It is utterly wonderful!

My neighbor does not eat guavas. She has given us permission to take as many guavas as we can carry and we fill our little bucket daily.

I wish you could smell this bucket… it is utterly delicious.

There are many ways we eat guavas. We eat them as is or we peal them, sprinkle them with sugar and let them sit in the fridge until it’s time for desert. We make guava jelly which is so delicious, especially when it is made by my dad, who won a prize for his guava jelly at the Bathurst Show! Or, we stew them in sugar and eat them warm over ice-cream.

Recipe for Stewed Guavas:Peal and halve guavas.In a saucepan, bring 1 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar to the boil. Add to this syrup your guavas. Boil for 15 minutes or until syrup thickens. Eat warm over ice-cream.

Donni Webber is the mom behind the popular natural living Waldorf website and blog, The Magic Onions - where the magic of nature and the wonder of childhood collide to make each moment a precious gift. She is a photographer, writer, crafter, wife and mother of two inspiring young children. Her work has been featured in many popular publications, including HGTV, Better Homes and Gardens, Disney and Apartment Therapy.

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I have eaten guava and have guava jelly in the fridge right now ( always makes me sing the Bob Marley song which my husband would sing while ‘talking’ to our monkeys when they were in my belly). I have never had the pleasure of smelling guava fresh off (or on still!) a tree! Now I am curious!

I’ve never tried guava and am not even sure if they would sell it at most grocery stores around here (I’m in Alberta, Canada), but if I find any, I think I will try for sure now! I love trying new fruits with my kids! Thanks for sharing the recipe, I hope I get a chance to try it someday.

Yum… lucky you CrookedMoon :-)You get different kinds of guavas… some go kind of pink. They are ready when they are softish… kind of like an avo. Enjoy and let me know what you think :-)Blessings and magic, Donni

Oh Guava, it is a magical perfume. We had a guava tree in the yard iwhen we lived in the the South Pacific. What amazed me is the healing ability of the tree. The children would climb all over it and branches and twigs and leaves would fall off, then they are grew back, pretty quickly.

I used to make fruit pops with them, I’d soak them and blend them with some passionfuit or pineapple or both and freeze them.

When I smell them in the grocery store it takes me right back to the tropics. Thanks for the warm reminder this chilly day in the northland.

Oh Donni, these guavas remind me of our home in PE where I lived when I was small. We had guava trees and my granny used to stew the guavas for us. Such wonderful memories. Thanks so much for this…xoLinda

We’ve got guavas now in my locality- South Florida! About a month ago the tiny Brazilians were everywhere, red, fragrant and amazing. My parents are from Trinidad, and they make us yummy jelly, too. Now, a different variety is ready for harvesting and savoring! They are golf-ball sized, and pale yellow on the trees. Guava trees have always fascinated me for their gorgeous hard wood, distinctive smoothness and mottled coloring. My dad said when he was a child, they had many toys made from guava wood, especially tops. Oh, how I wish he would have saved them! I save the dry branches, I love their beauty so!

I just picked a bucket full from 2 of my guava trees. Some are red, the others white. I have been making guava stew for years but I do not peel them. I wash them, cut in half, scrape out seeds and then cut again into quarters. I add sugar, the juice of one fresh lime and a piece of cinnamon stick and put them on a low fire until soft. Once cooled, I freeze in small batches to use over ice cream, pound cake or own their own. By freezing them, I have guava stew year round.

I have been living in Thailand now for ten years and of course guavas are readily available at the local open markets. Here they are called farrang, which also happens to be the slang term for Europeans. It is only today I decided to try cooking them because the only way they were available in my home country was canned, and although I frequently eat them raw, I did enjoy them like that.
So it is onto the motorcycle and go to buy a bag of guavas.

I am from the Caribbean, St. Lucia, to be exact and I just picked some. Ours are green on the outside and pink on the inside; they turn yellow on the outside when ripe.. We have an abundance right now; I just picked some and will be stewing those that have been sitting in the fruit bowl from earlier in the week. We use the young leaves, steeped in hot water for 10-15 mins for diarrhoea. There are lots of other medicinal uses to be derived from this tree.